“We ran a Good Campaign”: Hon. Walwyn says

Minister for Education and Culture, and National Democratic Party candidate Hon. Myron Walwyn who garnered most votes, 5777, during the 8 June election expressed his deepest gratitude to the people of the Territory for re-electing him and the NDP.

In a 9 June interview with the media Hon. Walwyn was asked to comment on the Opposition that was defeated in a landslide election race (11-2). In response Hon. Walwyn said the results are a clear indication that the public was not interested in some of the message that the Opposition Virgin Islands Party was sending.

In fact, Hon. Walwyn announced that the loss should be viewed as the public’s contempt for the Party’s campaign message, which Hon. Walwyn opined was negative. “I would suggest to them that they take a different approach, only that they have been rejected twice by the people in rapid succession for running the same type of smear campaigns,” Hon. Walwyn noted.

“I don’t think the people of the country are interested in their campaigns! Now when the dust has settled, and we can look intelligently at the allegations that were being brought — they fully well know or ought to have known that they were bringing rubbish to the people. This politics of trying to confuse people and not trying to uplift people, I think it is a thing of the past, and the country must continue to show its contempt for that kind of conduct,” the At Large Representative added.

The Minister for Education and Culture alluded to the pre-election accusations that were made by the VIP in relation to his business, and said that there is a manner in which certain matters should be dealt with.

In explaining the manner in which the accusation should have been dealt with, Hon. Walwyn explained: “If a member of the House does something wrong, or you suspect he did something wrong you need to make sure that you get a proper legal opinion. All members of the House get an allocation, and if you want to get proper legal advice on a matter you can get it. To go out there, and try to smear people’s name – persons like myself! I am just in politics, because I want to help, and for you to get your name dragged through the mud to make you feel like if you are a criminal, because you own a business, and you took a chance on your country and made something of it.”

“My business hires close to a 100 persons in this country, should I feel guilty for that! That part of it I want to see changed in this country — that we uplift people, educate them…but to go and make up stories I think it is not good and the country should continue to show its contempt for that type of conduct,” the Minister added.

As it relates to the 11 to 2 NDP win, Hon. Walwyn said that he is happy about the results: “I am happy! That’s the most I can say. I knew that we would have won the election because… we worked very hard. We ran a good campaign and it wasn’t just a campaign in the sense of saying that we’re gonna do this and we are gonna do that. You could have juxtaposed what was in our manifesto and what we were saying on the campaign with our performance over the last three and a half years. What we were selling was more real than what the others were selling, when you compare what was in their manifesto versus their tenure between 2007-2011.”